


A bit of Ralph and Laurie

by Naraht



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: M/M, Story within a Story, schooldays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reminiscing, Ralph shares one of his schoolboy fantasies with Laurie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A bit of Ralph and Laurie

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the 2013 Valentine's Day challenge at maryrenaultfics.
> 
> It is set during Chapter 15 of the book:
> 
> "though he didn't touch upon the future, in compensation he talked, and got Laurie to talk, a good deal about the past… After these long retrospective confidences, exchanged under the conditions best suited of all to unreserve, the feeling that they were deeply rooted in each other's lives seemed to Laurie as old as the events they had been reviving."

In the small hours of the morning their talk would turn to scattered confidences, those small confessions and acknowledgements that create such intimacy and that seem to belong to no other setting. It was then that Ralph's stories changed their tone, turning from sailor's yarns into something more tangible, specific to both the teller and the listener.

"Back at school I had this idea I used to pull out at odd moments," Ralph said one night as they lay together. "Impossible, of course, but I had it worked out in ridiculous detail. At one point I think I even consulted Thomas Cook. Would you like to hear it?"

Laurie nodded silently, half lost in the feeling of Ralph's hand stroking his hair.

"The trick," Ralph continued, "was to think of a situation where we could have found ourselves talking to one another. Really talking, I mean. Not that I couldn't have simply contrived some excuse if I had wanted to, but the beauty of this thing was that it let me keep my facade of responsibility intact. 

"So I imagined that we were going to the Continent together on a school trip. I never did work out whether it was a fifth form trip, and I'd been brought along to keep order, or it was a sixth form trip and you'd just got on very well with your French."

"My French wasn't that good," said Laurie sleepily.

"That's why it's a fantasy, Spud. Shall I go on?"

"Please."

"We changed trains and stations in Paris, bag and baggage, with Treviss complaining that he'd left his hat behind in the cafe. The key point was that the second train was so crowded that you and I had to sit in a different carriage from the rest. Now, I was already blessing my good fortune, but I liked to think that I would manage to maintain my reserve with a strict effort of will. So it was me looking at your reflection in the window glass while you said things like _isn't this an adventure, Lanyon_? And I thought, _he doesn't know the half of it_."

After all the tales of adventure on the high seas, Laurie was drawn immediately into the intimacy of this little story where he, Laurie Odell, featured high in the list of _dramatis personae_. It seemed somehow to make him an important part of Ralph's past, fictional though it was.

"Hours later," Ralph continued, "it turned out that Jeepers had read the timetable all wrong, because the train divided in a little village and left our carriage behind, with the two of us in it."

"What did we do?"

"First I cursed myself for being so idiotic not to have checked the timetable with my own eyes. And you told me that I shouldn't reproach myself and it wasn't my fault."

Laurie chuckled. "And then?"

"I forgot to mention that this village was right up in the Alps. Mountains in every direction. Anyway, you were all for staying in the railway station until someone came to collect us, as if we were two pieces of lost luggage, but I pointed out that there was only one train a day and we'd be far better off going into the village to send a telegram and get a bite to eat."

"I don't think I would have been quite that silly."

"Neither do I, Spud, now, but I hardly knew you then. You must forgive me for being the hero of my own daydream."

"Of course," said Laurie. "Go on."

"I do think that I let you order our dinner in the cafe, you being such a dab hand with your French. And after exploring the village we found a little hotel where we could stay the night. We turned out all our pockets and found that we had just enough. The innkeeper said that he had a room left but we would have to share a bed, and you said very bravely that you didn't mind a bit."

They were sharing a bed now, indisputably, and Laurie let his mind wander a moment from Ralph's story as he reminded himself of the reality of the fact.

"Even though it was August," Ralph continued, his voice quieting, "it got very cold that night, up in the mountains. We got under all the blankets but you kept shivering and shivering, until finally I had to take you and hold you in my arms to keep you warm. And I held you very close."

Laurie shivered all over, involuntarily, at that.

"And?" he breathed.

"And then usually I would tell myself that I was a bloody fool for imagining things that would never come true, and that I ought to get back to my revision."

"Oh," said Laurie, disappointed. 

"Of course I usually didn't." He paused. "So eventually one thing would lead to another, something along the lines of..."

" _Oh_ ," said Laurie again, in a very different tone.

"Being only a sixth former at the time," said Ralph confidentially, "there were other things that it never occurred to me to imagine..."

And the rest of the story, updated for a modern audience, was told without the need for words.


End file.
